How can a retired savior be considered retired if he drops to 40,000?

"And my attempts to change Nostramo?"

"What else do you think I mean? Accusing you of making Nightfall look like a classical music capital?" The true Lord of the Eighth Legion screamed like a monster at this sentence, "--I do have something to say about this: The Eighth Legion should be the hammer of justice, the blade of punishment, and the judge who spreads fear! And you made them weak!"

Facing the criticism of a Primarch, especially the criticism of Konrad Curze, Fujimaru Ritsuka still did not show any fear. The only emotional behavior she showed was a helpless sigh: "It seems that we have differences on many things. If things develop as the Emperor planned, I am afraid we will have to work out for a while."

Konrad Curze knew what the plan was, and had been pessimistic about it from the beginning, but even though he had received a definite judgment and death in Tagusa, before his soul was awakened by the Emperor and he entered the illusion, he realized that the instincts he had when he was alive were still deeply engraved in his body that lacked material support.

He saw that this plan would go smoothly to the end, and then it would succeed. That's why, even though he was unwilling, he still almost obediently followed the arrangement of the illusion to go through the trial; that's why, even though Fujimaru Ritsuka did make him angry on many levels, the girl could still stand there and talk to him without any hesitation.

She was a more important part of this doomed plan, even more important than Conrad Kurtz, so she had to stay alive.

"Let's get the point across first: You think my many attempts are meaningless because they can't change the inevitable outcome. Is that right, Mr. Conrad?"

"Indeed." Although Conrad Curz had some complaints about many of her questions, he still recognized Fujimaru Ritsuka's ability to quickly grasp the key points in the conversation. However, this recognition at this time only intensified the disgust and irritability that had been lingering in his heart since he boarded the Nightfall, making him feel that his dislike for the whole thing was not pure enough.

"And don't try to convince me with your persuasion tactics." The awakened dead soul added with clear malice.

Fujimaru Ritsuka shook his head slightly. "I didn't convince Sevitarion. I just used my identity as the commander of the Eighth Legion to temporarily suppress some of his ideas that were not to my liking. You should also know that Sevitarion... can be said to be very stubborn. Or the Astartes are basically very stubborn. It always takes a lot of time and reliable examples to completely convince them to change their minds."

"Then you will soon discover that the Primarchs are far more stubborn than the Astartes."

"And much more proud. In fact, I have already discovered this from the history of the Empire shown to me by the Emperor and from my contact with Mr. Ferrus. But considering that we have both experienced so many bad prophetic visions here and now, I think maybe our communication on the topic of 'the future' will be smoother?"

Conrad Curz did not comment. Even though he had a lot of sneers in his heart, he still made a "please continue" gesture on the surface. He was determined to see what this mortal - according to the basic setting of this illusion, a mortal who had witnessed every prophecy he had seen in his life so far, but still did not have a mental breakdown - had to say.

"First of all, I don't think it's meaningless to try to change something when the outcome is already determined." Fujimaru Ritsuka turned his head and cast his gaze toward Nostramo, who was hanging in the sky. "Many times, an event will have more impacts than just the outcome - just like this planet that always goes back to the starting point. Maybe it will always return to this chaotic and sinful state, but in the dozen years when every change first began and order and peace could still operate, there are still people who benefit from it."

The thoughts of a mortal. Conrad Kurtz almost laughed.

"What does this mean? The self-comfort that comes from a tiny achievement?"

"How can this be considered self-consolation? Isn't a trivial achievement an achievement?" Fujimaru Ritsuka refuted with a similar sentence structure, "People who could only die of hunger and cold on the original Nostramo have received appropriate relief, people who could only be worn out to death on the assembly line have received proper compensation and vacations, people who could only be consumed as weapons and cannon fodder for the nobles have received another more valuable way out, people who could only be illiterate all their lives have received education and a ladder for advancement - even if such an order can only operate for a dozen years at a time, aren't these welcome changes? I understand that your Primarch and even the Astartes don't care much about the lives of ordinary people. During the Great Crusade, your eyes were on the stars, your fleets swept countless planets, slaughtered countless aliens, and pointed their swords at a glorious future -"

"—a future that was imposed on us."

"——But do you dare to say that you have never longed for such a future?"

Ritsuka Fujimaru even turned around and growled at him, and Conrad Coates was actually stunned for a moment by the question.

He did not answer the question, but the act of not answering was itself an answer.

"That is a future that depicts the happiness of all mankind." After calming down a little, Fujimaru Ritsuka's tone turned into a soft whisper, "And the happiness of mankind sprouts from these things that you don't care about."

"But it's useless." Conrad Curz replied in a low voice with a similar volume, "You also know that these things on Nostramo are just illusory bubbles that can only last for a dozen years. They may look beautiful, but they will eventually fall back into the quagmire filled with deadly chemicals after they are broken."

"The bubble may burst eventually, but it did exist," said Fujimaru Ritsuka. "People who can distinguish right from wrong and have justice in their hearts grow and become righteous in these waves of reincarnation. When the number of these people increases, chaos will have to pay a greater price to replace order, until it can no longer form a climate - I have data to prove this."

Naive. Conrad Kurtz thought so. But he began to have trouble deciding whether this was ridiculous or respectable.

"Perhaps, but how long will it take?" He was a little surprised to find that his questioning no longer carried such obvious malice and hostility. "Will the peaceful future you expect come first? Or will the end of Nostramo come first? Didn't your prophecy tell you?"

"...I don't quite understand your views on those prophecies, Mr. Conrad." Fujimaru Ritsuka sighed, "It seems to me that you are completely trapped by them in your life, but I managed to escape because I was on guard from the beginning. As a person who is not in a cage, my answer to this is: I don't care."

This answer shocked Konrad Curze far more than the indignation caused by his ideals being denied by a mortal. Even as the Primarch, he could only unconsciously repeat the other party's answer in surprise: "...It doesn't matter?"

"If the future of peace and tranquility arrives first, that would be great. But if the end of Nostramo arrives first, does that mean my transformation of Nostramo has to end?"

Fujimaru Ritsuka confidently said something that seemed illogical to Conrad Coates:

"It's true that I want to change Nostramo, but what I actually want to change is not the planet itself, but the people on it! With the technological level of mankind in the 30th millennium, it is not a fantasy to want to move the entire planet's population to live on another planet! If the destruction of Nostramo cannot be prevented, then let it be destroyed. As the Primarch, of course I can pack up all the residents of my home planet and put them on another habitable planet, rebuild the same culture and architecture, and continue to transform its social environment!"

Conrad Kurtz was so surprised that he was speechless. Although he had never thought about solving this problem, he was still shocked by the shocking logic that was used to solve the problem. He could not react, and Fujimaru Ritsuka's speech continued:

"In the final analysis, although we can see the outcome of something in the future, this outcome itself is only a temporary summary and conclusion of the future, not the actual end. Nostramo may be destroyed. If she is really shattered in the orbital bombardment, her wreckage will still float in this galaxy, and the ships of the Mechanicus can still salvage the adamantium ore that originally belonged to Nostramo nearby. According to my thinking further, the galaxy may be ignited by war, and Horus may drag the entire empire into the quagmire of war. If this is bound to happen, then isn't the best thing to do to stockpile enough fire extinguishers in advance, and find a way to tie a rope to pull her out when the empire slides into the swamp?"

"That tiny effort is like a mantis trying to stop a chariot. In the midst of the Burning Heaven War, what use is a mere legion?"

"Efforts may not produce results, but efforts themselves will also have meaning - even if it is very small." She has already talked about this part of the topic before, but Fujimaru Ritsuka doesn't seem to mind repeating it again, "Without the accumulation of small steps, there is no way to reach a thousand miles; without the accumulation of small streams, there is no river or sea. I believe that even if the little effort I make today does not produce results, even if the results are dissipated in the dangerous reality, it will surely become the cornerstone of a different future."

"But how do you know whether the unforeseen future is good or bad?"

"If it's a good future, accept it; if it's a bad future, work hard to correct it or overcome it." When Fujimaru Ritsuka said this, he was like a kid who was playing rogue in a game and wanted to win no matter what. "I don't believe in fate!"

After the words fell, Konrad Curze thought for a few minutes. For the Primarch, these few minutes were enough for him to do quite complicated thinking and process data that ordinary people could not understand. Fujimaru Ritsuka didn't know what he was thinking about during this period, but she obviously had enough patience and just stood quietly aside, waiting for the other party's thinking to come to a conclusion.

Finally, the Primarch of the Eighth Legion unexpectedly smiled a smile that only contained positive meanings:

"Fujimaru Ritsuka, you did teach me a lesson." He was not very willing to admit it, but he decided to admit it. "I may need some time to think about all the points you raised in this conversation. Before I come to a conclusion, I will reserve my opinion on them - but only on the last point, I can agree unconditionally and immediately."

He smiled mischievously and said, "If you believed in fate, you would have died ten thousand times already."

"Who said it wasn't?" Fujimaru Ritsuka winked at him deliberately.

The slightly tense atmosphere faded away, and they all smiled silently in the almost non-existent light on the bridge of the Nightfall.

(End of this chapter)

Chapter 7 Contract

Once the atmosphere became more cordial, the unpleasant parts of the plan seemed more acceptable.

"I guess the organizer of this trial allowing you and me to meet is probably a signal that 'the trial can be over.'" Conrad Curze took the initiative to bring it up, "We can proceed to the 'next step of the plan' - although I don't like my father's impulsive decision to let me 'bind to another person with some kind of spell', but if that 'other person' is you, it doesn't seem unbearable."

Fujimaru Ritsuka shrugged nonchalantly: "Well... let's talk about the issue of the 'contract' first. This thing, well, is still very necessary at least in the initial stage of the plan."

"Appreciate further details?"

"We all crawled out of Nostramo, and we all have a certain psychological endurance. I'll be frank with you: Do you still remember that you are dead?"

"deep impression."

"After 10,000 years in the material world, even the remains of the original body will decay over time. It is understandable that there is probably nothing left now, right?"

Conrad Coates gestured indifferently for the other party to continue.

"Based on the above premise, as a complete creature of the Warp with only your soul and essence left, where will you get the body you need to pass through the veil and walk in reality? You can't rely on bloody sacrifices to build one for you every time like those messy big demons do, right?"

Facing Ritsuka Fujimaru's matter-of-fact gaze, Conrad Coates paused suspiciously for two seconds and silently looked away.

"——How could you really have thought of that?!"

"...The empire is huge, and we can find countless sinners on any planet." The deceased Primarch knew from the beginning that Fujimaru Ritsuka strongly opposed this, but he did not figure out the specific source of this view, and did not even think that there was anything wrong with his thinking. "If the situation is urgent and there is no time to sacrifice, then temporarily snatching a body that is not very suitable can also be an alternative. Just carefully select a target that really deserves to die."

Fujimaru Ritsuka took a deep breath and covered his face in pain.

"We need to find a large block of time to discuss this issue, including the law and procedural justice..." She said in a muffled voice behind her palm, "But I thought you were a bit of a mysophobe. You don't care about this behavior that is almost the same as 'cannibalism'?"

Conrad Curze laughed sinisterly. "Didn't the one on the throne tell you? I also carved with the flesh and blood of the dead - a statue of my father, and he spoke to me through the statue."

He specifically mentioned this incident not because he really wanted to explain anything, but just wanted to scare this mortal girl who looked underage. Unfortunately, this girl, who was not ordinary like most mortals and whose real age was probably not even a "girl", had already passed the stage of being scared by simple bloody horror stories. Her reaction was just to sigh longer and louder, then took her hands away and showed a serious expression.

"We need to talk about this, too, including the fact that you and your legion hang corpses and human skins everywhere as decorations," she said. "Although it's probably a waste of time to tell you that you shouldn't desecrate corpses, and I don't mean to criticize your 'artistic traditions', but you should at least pay attention to hygiene issues, right?"

Conrad Kurtz began to feel that if there had to be some kind of "contract" to bind him and this little girl together, his future life would not be boring.

Fujimaru Ritsuka waved her hands in annoyance, as if that could get rid of this topic that she hated so much: "Anyway, back to the original topic - this 'contract' modified from the original system exists to solve the problem that you currently don't have a body that can walk in the physical world. The fact is not entirely true, but for ease of understanding, I will use this minimalist version to summarize it: I can directly use the ether in reality to weave a material form that is almost the same as the original one. The contract between you and me ensures that it is indeed you who uses this form, and not some other cat or dog in the subspace."

After a brief pause to make sure the other party had no questions, Fujimaru Ritsuka continued to add: "Of course the contract itself has many other functions, but you can just treat it as a property certificate. If you don't like it, you can cancel it after we leave the subspace. Besides, haven't you already maintained contracts with tens of thousands of people?"

Conrad Coates raised his eyebrows: "I don't have that impression."

"Even if I don't mention my illusion, you still have your Legion!" Fujimaru Ritsuka intentionally waved his hand in the direction of the Space Marines gathered inside the bridge, "Don't you realize that the Astartes transformation surgery can also be seen as a process of reaching a base contract with the Primarch?"

She paused, carefully observed Conrad Coates's expression, and then concluded firmly: "Okay, you didn't realize it."

"So this base contract—"

"——I'm beginning to regret using this as an example. I'm not good at explaining these magecraft concepts!"

Fujimaru Ritsuka was still depressed for a while, but he still explained these concepts with all his might: "In fact, the Astartes transformation operation itself has already fully embodied the concept of the base contract: the Astartes will conclude a contract with the original body that provided the genes at the genetic level, and will undergo a complete transformation in the process, randomly inheriting some abilities or traits from the original body, and instinctively it is difficult for them to think of rebelling against their own original body. The most important thing is that once the base contract is established, it cannot be dissolved. The base contract imposed by a being of the same level as Tiamat can even completely change the recipient's way of thinking from the bottom-level logic, obliterating its original personality, thereby achieving complete control over the recipient - but the Astartes operation is not as terrible as this."

Conrad Curze nodded and asked, "Then what about the contract that the Emperor intends to establish between you and me—"

"——That's just a relatively ordinary magic contract, modified from Chaldea's Heroic Spirit Summoning System." Fujimaru Ritsuka shrugged. "It doesn't involve genes, souls, or a particularly clear master-slave relationship. It simply builds a 'channel' between you and me in the magical sense as a bond, and you may or may not share some of each other's abilities. There's no particularly troublesome ceremony, and you can cancel it at any time if you want to. If you regret it after canceling it, you can disconnect and reconnect at any time. This kind of thing should be easy to use in an emergency."

The other party to the contract remained silent on this.

"You don't seem to be very interested in this matter?" Fujimaru Ritsuka walked around the original body who turned his head away and tried to look him in the eye again. "I think we are all connected to many contracts, so one more contract won't make a difference... But if this really bothers you, I promise to solve the problem after we solve the shell problem. If you feel uneasy, I can also swear to you with my soul in the sense of magic."

"That's not the question." Conrad Coates reached out his hand and easily pushed her back to where she was. "Just do what you are supposed to do according to the plan. You have done a good job. But in that 'big plan', you have your task and I have mine. We are just working together temporarily. There is no need to make our relationship too close."

He said this with a dull look, and then released the control over his own domain. At the moment when the time in the illusion began to flow again, the figure of Conrad Curze also shattered like a bubble and dissipated into nothingness.

He left the illusion.

-

Although in Fujimaru Ritsuka's opinion, it was Conrad Curze who disappeared on the Nightfall in the illusion; but from the latter's perspective, everything around him quickly cracked and shattered, and his own tangible entity in the illusion turned into golden sand-like light spots, dissipating into the extremely vast space around him.

Time and space in the warp are meaningless. Although both Fujimaru Ritsuka and the Emperor's plan clearly have a clear timetable for their entire plan, before leaving the warp, those things are nothing more than empty talk and waste paper. Therefore, Konrad Curze cannot accurately locate the time and space he is in. Even the Primarch, in such a situation, can only describe his current state in a rather imprecise way:

He was in a space that was made entirely of golden light. No matter which direction he looked, it was boundless. There was no gravity, so he couldn't even tell up from down. It was a space that belonged to the Emperor. He was also in a state of soul that was hard to describe. The ends of his limbs always deformed uncontrollably like some kind of viscous black fluid, which always made him feel quite irritated.

But in this glittering place, what annoyed him most was the glittering Ferrus Manus in front of him.

As a dead person who also existed as a soul or a warp creature, Ferrus Manus's form seemed much more stable than Konrad Curze's. The latter didn't really want to think about the reason carefully, and he was too lazy to pretend to be a brother with the other party - they had nothing to say to each other when they were alive, and this did not change after death.

Even the sarcastic remarks and attacks on each other had been said in their last "conversation" - the kind of "conversation" in which the already dead Primarch might have died again if it had not been for the power of the Emperor in between.

"Have you made up your mind?" Ferrus Manus asked bluntly.

"Do I have a say in this matter?" Conrad Kurtz sneered. "I am guilty of an unforgivable crime. Death should be my only and final destination. But our father always ignores our wishes and does what he thinks is right. I don't deserve a second life. I have said it many times. Do you think he has ever listened to me?"

This is also the reason why he suddenly lost interest at the end of the illusion. Conrad Curz once again clearly realized that he was just a monster hiding in the dark, and Fujimaru Ritsuka...

"Father must have his reasons for choosing you in this matter." Before he could successfully give an accurate definition of Fujimaru Ritsuka, Ferrus Manus mechanically repeated this point that he had repeated fifty-six times before, interrupting Conrad Coates's train of thought, "Perhaps we cannot understand it for the time being--"

"--But in my opinion, the reason he woke me up from the sweet death was simply because you refused to go." The Primarch of the Eighth Legion, who was proficient in almost all means of making people uncomfortable, did not care (or rather, deliberately) lift the fig leaf of his brother. "Unlike me, you have long enjoyed the qualification of occasionally stepping into reality as a member of the Cursed Legion. But why, after ten thousand years, your miracles have never been spread among your descendants?"

Conrad Curze sneered mischievously, almost like a smug child: "Are you worried that you won't be able to hide from your offspring now that you have a physical form?"

(End of this chapter)

Chapter 8: Don’t Think So Clearly About Subspace

Sometimes, Fujimaru Ritsuka really couldn't tell which made her feel more tired: spending hundreds of years in the illusion to govern a rotten planet, leading the legion to conquer the galaxy, and being killed once in the final great rebellion, or realizing again that the psychological age of creatures like the Primarchs generally did not exceed five years old.

If nothing else, Conrad Koz and Ferrus Manus are very good examples.

"Gentlemen. Although there are indeed some reference points in this environment where there is nothing but golden light and you can't even tell up, down, left, and right, don't you think I can't tell that a typhoon just passed through here?" Fujimaru Ritsuka said, holding his forehead. "Also, when I came here last time, I clearly brought some basic furniture here. Even if no one wants to use it, it can be used to mark the specific location. Where are those things now?"

"What typhoon? We were just having some 'friendly exchanges' between brothers who have not seen each other for a long time. We didn't do anything out of the ordinary."

Konrad Curze, whose form was originally unstable and was about to lose its outline under the opponent's attack, turned into a black sticky body, argued like this, and chuckled nonchalantly. He was used to being a villain in the last stage of his life, so in a sense, he has now lowered his bottom line very low, and it is not surprising that he behaved like this. However, when Ferrus Manus, who was still angry and aggressive, heard the last question, his face, which was completely made up of the golden flames of the Emperor's psychic energy, suddenly showed a little embarrassment.

“Father took them away when he last came to inspect.” Ferrus chose to answer the second question directly. “Using psionic energy to create something out of thin air is a very rare spell. He wants to know how you did it.”

Ritsuka Fujimaru stared at the two primarchs - or to describe it from the visual perspective, two somewhat erratic shadows - for a few seconds, and finally decided that for the sake of his own mental health, and on the premise that his mind needed a rest, he should not investigate why they started fighting again for the time being.

As the only person present with a physical body who could return to the real world at any time if she wanted to, she felt she needed to be more magnanimous.

So she sighed, reached forward and "plucked" a large colorless, translucent crystal cluster from the empty space, as if it had been hanging there and she just took it down normally. "That's how it is done. Although it's difficult to make such a large scale in our place, it's not difficult in terms of technology alone."

Although it is understandable that she was explaining and demonstrating the actual power to answer Ferrus Manus' (or the Emperor's) questions, even in the warp, this scene was still too confusing for two Primarchs who only had a basic understanding of psychic energy. This kind of thing is difficult to understand with pure reason and logic, and perhaps it is difficult to understand the principle behind it even if you watch it many times.

"In principle, it is to gather the scattered ether around like using a transmutation spell, but without giving them any specific direction to form. If the project can be completed safely and successfully, the result will be this kind of ether block." Fujimaru Ritsuka waved the crystal cluster in his hand. "This thing is useless, but because ether itself is a kind of energy, the things made in this way also conform to the law of conservation of mass and energy, so it can be--"

She suddenly turned around and threw the crystal cluster out like a shot put—

"--so!"

Without any warning, the large piece of translucent crystal exploded in the air under the golden sky.

"But the cost-effectiveness of doing so is very low." As if he knew what the two people beside him were thinking, Fujimaru Ritsuka turned around and added, "It's another matter when it comes to tactics under special circumstances. Under normal circumstances, using this kind of magic product to make explosives is far less effective than using magic to create an explosion directly.

"Then, based on this basic theory of formation, if we add corresponding concepts to the ether by some means when converging it—"

Fujimaru Ritsuka reached forward again, and this time she "plucked" from nothing a ritual dagger with a ruby ​​​​decorated on the end of the hilt: "--This is what is called 'creating something out of thin air'."

Ferrus Manus stared at the dagger for a second. "This... spell, what are its limits? Will factors such as the size, mass, or complexity of the creation affect the final product's perfection?"

"In my case, I can't," Fujimaru Ritsuka replied. "Although the most common way to achieve the effect of 'creating things out of thin air' is to use the caster's own imagination to add concepts to the ether, and this shaping technique is called 'projection magic'. However, that method requires the caster to understand what he wants to create at the atomic structure level and perfectly replicate it through imagination. It is too difficult for me and I can't learn it at all. I am basically a summoning sorcerer, so the way I 'make things' is strictly speaking a kind of necromancy."

Conrad Coates showed some interest in this: "Neccentricity? The kind of magic that uses various rituals to summon the souls of specific dead people and communicate with them?"

"Well, it's normal to think of human souls first when talking about spirits in spirit summoning, but spirit summoning in a broad sense applies to animism, which is basically the case that a stone, a blade of grass, or something that has been used for a long time has its own soul." Fujimaru Ritsuka explained, "For me, the process of weaving objects with magic power is: first absorb the necessary magic power from the surroundings or from myself, and then select the corresponding concepts or legends from the 'database' that can serve as the 'soul' of the object, let the two sides combine with each other, and through the natural influence of the non-material soul on the material form, the ether will naturally solidify into what I want."

As she spoke, Ritsuka Fujimaru pulled out a bolter from mid-air for demonstration, and crookedly threw the weapon, which was too big for her, to Ferrus Manus, who looked a little eager to try.

"This technique is basically automatic in the process of forming objects, so there is no need to consider the accuracy of the technique. As long as the magic power is sufficient, anything can be made. If the concept itself is correct, there is no difference in strength between it and the real thing. It is very friendly to a half-baked person like me. As for where the limit is... why not ask the Emperor if I can try it here! Anyway, I think the Emperor should consider the living environment of his employees!"